Brokeback Mountain
Starring: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid
Directed By: Ang Lee
Written By: E. Annie Proulx (short story), Larry McMurtry (Screenplay)
MPAA: Rated R

Brokeback Mountain is the story of two young men who develop a passionate relationship over one summer while working as ranch hands together.

That’s an extremely basic summarization of the film. The film itself transcends any possible definition or classification. It could be defined as a coming-of-age story. It might be classified as a romance. However you choose to label it, just don’t call it another gay movie.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Jack Twist. Heath Ledger plays Ennis Del Mar. Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams play their respective wives, named Lureen Newsome and Alma Beers. The names are nicely matched to the characters.

Jack Twist is a twist on a traditional cowboy. Del Mar is Spanish for ‘of the sea’. Ennis is definitely unstable, like sea waters. Newsome sounds like nuisance, as Jack tends to see his wife. Alma is a poster-child for the stereotypical working-class female; hence the surname “Beers”.

Jack and Ennis live their lives separately, as fathers and husbands to children and wives they care much less about than they do each other. They see each other for a few weekends a year, and spend the rest of their time miles apart – Jack in Texas, Ennis in Wyoming.

The film is set in 1963 in the South. This was neither a time nor a location that was known for tolerance of anything that wasn’t heterosexual, Anglo-Saxon or Christian. And the chosen method for dealing with those things that did not fit into these categories was violence. Both Jack and Ennis are aware of this and are forced to hide their relationship.

It can’t be denied that the film has an agenda of bringing to light the difficulties surrounding homosexual relationships. However, I think it can shed light upon the difficulties surrounding any relationship or any situation where one finds his or her self “outside of the norm”.

Above all else, the film is about a forbidden love and the pain that comes from a love denied. Jack sums up the theme of the film best when he says, “There’s never enough time.”

Brokeback Mountain is the new Casablanca. While Rick and Ilsa will always have Paris, Jack and Ennis will always have Brokeback Mountain. It is their little piece of heaven on earth where all was safe and happy and perfect.

Don’t we all have such a place? I know I do. It’s anytime I’m in the theater, seeing a great film, like Brokeback Mountain.

Grade: A+